Lubbock Dust Storms

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On one Lubbock afternoon, day turned into night. A monstrous crimson wall marched its way through the city stealing the sun’s light. Behind the tumultuous wall of red, winds ripped trees from the ground and roofs from buildings as if the curtain itself was alive and breathing. And then…it was gone.

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The dust storm of October 17, 2011 was among the worst Lubbock has seen since the Dust Bowl years. It roared into Lubbock at a blistering speed of 55 mph, led by an ominous billowing wall of dust. Visibilities in Lubbock dropped to zero as a blood red hue hid anything further than 3 feet away. While strong and damaging winds peaking at 75 mph wreaked havoc across Lubbock, the storm did not last long. Aside from a light blanket of dust left in the air, the storm was gone by the morning.

 

The 2011 dust storm was not the only dust storm Lubbock has experienced. Several significant storms have occurred in the past decade, including one in December of 2012 that lasted over 24 hours. In fact, many citizens of the South Plains know that when the wind blows, dust is quick to follow.

 

Dust storms, or “haboobs,” using the traditional Arabic word, are not very easy to forecast. Several factors must align in order for these unique situations to occur.

First, there needs to be a source of dust. That may be a strange thing to point out for a place like West Texas, but loose dust is important to these storms.  Droughts are the number one cause for loose dust to build up. During extended droughts (like the drought that Texas was experiencing in 2011), vegetation, including crops, are reduced. With reduced vegetation in the ground, dust and soil are not held in place by plant roots. Instead they are free to be easily displaced.

 

Secondly, there needs to be a feature to disturb the dust. High wind speeds are often the culprit in this factor. High wind speeds can result from a number of atmospheric events – thunderstorm outflow and frontal boundaries have both caused a number of dust storms in Lubbock.

 

A fast moving cold front caused the historic Haboob in October of 2011. One of the reasons that this event was so severe is that it passed through Lubbock at the perfect time of day. Strong wind speeds existed above the ground directly over West Texas.  Our atmosphere does a lot of mixing between the air at the surface and the air higher up. This mixing is fueled by the sun heating the Earth and can transport the strong winds from above the ground to the surface. This is a bit like a giant mixing spoon stirring up our atmosphere.  Mixing also helps lifting dust and take it up into the air, which helped creating a tall wall of dust in October 2011. The cold front that caused the intense dust storm passed through Lubbock in the late afternoon – the time of day when our atmosphere is doing a lot of mixing. So, the high wind speeds normally following the cold front were increased by the atmospheric mixing. Dust was picked up easily and a Haboob was born.

Dust storms and Haboobs are dangerous phenomena. In the past ten years, dust storms have caused the most weather-related deaths in Lubbock. That’s more than tornadoes have caused! A majority of these deaths were the result of car accidents – the drivers couldn’t see due to the dust. So, it is important to take dust storm warnings seriously – it is best to just go inside before the weather goes wild in West Texas!